Tantalising secrets of The Beatles buried in the White Album: Fifty years after its release, fascinating trivia reveals how Ringo didn't drum and the songs were inspired by monkeys, Mia Farrow and an old English sheepdog

Secrets of the iconic album revealed 50 years after it transformed pop music

Ringo Starr didn't drum on two tracks and even left the band during recording

One song inspired by Paul McCartney seeing two monkeys mating in the road

Vibrating sound on one song created by wine bottle sitting on top a speaker

This was The Beatles’ ninth studio album, a double LP of 30 tracks, including Back In The USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

Today, on its 50th birthday, we celebrate with a collection of fascinating trivia about the White Album and reveal how it was inspired by, among other things, monkeys, Mia Farrow and an old English sheepdog.

The album is actually called The Beatles

Its working title had been A Doll’s House, after the play by Henrik Ibsen. But then a band called Family released an LP titled Music In A Doll’s House, so The Beatles decided to simply name the album after themselves.

The White Album name refers to the famous sleeve. This was intended as a complete contrast to the band’s previous album, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, whose cover was a colourful montage of famous people.

The plain white design was the work of pop artist Richard Hamilton. The words ‘The Beatles’ are embossed in white in the Helvetica font. Early copies had serial numbers to create, according to Hamilton, ‘the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies’.

The secrets of the iconic White Album (inset) examined on its 50th birthday reveal the bizarre stories behind how some of the tracks were inspired and recorded

Ringo Starr sold his copy of the album for a fortune

Ringo received the very first copy, serial number 0000001. The other three band members were given numbers 2 to 4, with the group’s manager Brian Epstein getting 7 and their press officer Derek Taylor number 9. John Lennon gave 0000005 to an unnamed friend — when this copy was sold on eBay in 2008, it fetched nearly £20,000. But even that pales when compared with the amount Ringo got for his copy at auction in 2015 — $790,000 (around £620,000).

Many of the songs were written in India

In March 1968 all four Beatles travelled to Rishikesh in India to attend a transcendental meditation course run by the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Also in attendance was Mike Love of the Beach Boys.

This contributed to the White Album’s opening track, Back in the USSR. The chorus and vocals were a light-hearted send up of the Beach Boys’ sound, while the title was a parody of Chuck Berry’s Back In The USA. When Love heard McCartney playing an early version of the song on his guitar one morning, he suggested adding in something about ‘all the girls around Russia’. So USSR went into the title.

In March 1968 all four Beatles travelled to Rishikesh in India to attend a transcendental meditation course run by the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, along with Mike Love of the Beach Boys

Dear Prudence refers to Mia Farrow’s sister

Prudence Farrow was also on the meditation course. The 20-year-old locked herself in her hut on the retreat for much of the time. Lennon remarked wryly that this was because ‘she was trying to find God quicker than anyone else’. The line ‘won’t you come out to play?’ is Lennon and the others encouraging Farrow to leave her hut.

Ringo left the band during recording

By 1968, relations between the band members were fractious. When McCartney criticised Ringo’s drumming during recording sessions, the drummer decided he’d had enough and left. He borrowed Peter Sellers’ yacht and took himself off to Sardinia.

Ringo Starr did not drum on all tracks

Not to be deterred by Ringo’s departure, Macca picked up the sticks himself and did the drumming on the first two songs. His performances are technically accomplished. This could be seen as the inspiration for the joke: ‘Ringo wasn’t the best drummer in the world — in fact, he wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.’ Although credited to Lennon, the line was actually coined by the comedian Jasper Carrott.

. . . and was lured back by a telegram

Ringo’s bandmates sent him a message saying that they loved him, and asked him to come home. He did, and when he entered the recording studio, he found that Harrison had covered his drum kit with flowers spelling out ‘Welcome back, Ringo’.

The Beatles with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after his farewell appearance at the London Hilton

But the atmosphere remained fraught

Lennon didn’t help matters by bringing Yoko Ono to sessions, breaking the band’s ‘no wives or girlfriends in the studio’ rule. So bad was the atmosphere that, at times, he and McCartney recorded simultaneously in different studios. In the end, only 16 of the 30 tracks on the album have all four Beatles performing on them.

John Lennon sang alone on one track

Julia is the only Beatles song on which Lennon performed alone. This is fitting as it was about his mother. When her son was just five, Julia Lennon left him in the care of her sister Mimi. They were later reconciled, but she was hit and killed by a car when he was 17. This prompted Lennon to say that he had ‘lost her twice’.

The truth about Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

McCartney wrote the song after hearing its title used by Nigerian conga player Jimmy Scott. The musician, who had once backed Stevie Wonder, used the expression with ‘life goes on, bra’ tacked on at the end. Scott played congas on the song. The Desmond who ‘has a barrow in the market place’ was McCartney’s tribute to the Jamaican reggae musician Desmond Dekker, whose hit Israelites was topping the charts.

How Clapton’s guitar got its name

Because relations between the Beatles were so bad, Harrison felt he wanted a friend with him. So he invited Eric Clapton to play lead guitar on his song While My Guitar Gently Weeps. For the recording Clapton used a red Gibson Les Paul that he himself had given to Harrison a few weeks previously. Because of the guitar’s colour Harrison had named it Lucy, after the red-headed comedian Lucille Ball.

The Beatles On The Set Of A Hard Days Night At Twickenham Studios, (left to right) George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon have their hair combed by (left to right) Pattie Boyd, Tina Williams, Pru Bury and Susan Whiteman

Blackbird is based on a piece by Bach

As a young guitarist, McCartney had tried to learn Bourrée in E minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, a piece originally written for the lute. Here, he adapted the tune to come up with Blackbird.

The first night his future wife Linda went back to his house in St John’s Wood, just round the corner from Abbey Road studios, McCartney sat on the window-sill of an upstairs room and played the song to the fans camped outside on the pavement.

Boozy secret behind Long Long Long

The eerie rattling effect providing an atmospheric end to the song was simply the accidental result of a wine bottle left on top of a speaker cabinet. When Paul McCartney held a note on the Hammond organ connected to the speaker, the bottle vibrated.

Inspiration from some very amorous monkeys

Paul McCartney wrote Why Don’t We Do It In The Road? after seeing two monkeys mating in India. Their lack of embarrassment impressed him. ‘That’s how simple the act of procreation is,’ said Macca. ‘We have horrendous problems with it, and yet animals don’t.’

And it was also inspired by sexual shenanigans, though this time of the human variety. John Lennon was disgusted that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had made advances towards Mia Farrow, who was present at the retreat with her sister. He wrote the song in response, and originally called it ‘Maharishi’. Lennon later admitted they changed Maharishi in the lyrics to Sexy Sadie. ‘That’s about the Maharishi, yes,’ he explained. ‘I copped out and I wouldn’t write “Maharishi, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone.” But now it can be told.’

The original incident was part of the reason Lennon gave up on the meditation course. The Maharishi asked why he was leaving. Lennon replied: ‘If you’re so cosmic, you’ll know why.’

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Fifty years after release The Beatles White Album tantalising secrets of the record that changed pop